FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Aug. 22, 2019

BEND, Ore. — St. Charles Foundation and St. Charles Health System invite members of the community to nominate outstanding local physicians for this year’s North Star Physician of the Year Award.

Presented at the Foundation’s signature annual event, the Saints Gala, this award recognizes an actively practicing physician in Central Oregon whose work has been defined by compassionate patient care, professionalism and a commitment to improving the lives of Central Oregonians.

“The North Star Award singles out a talented physician who has made it his or her life’s mission to provide patient-focused care,” said Lisa Dobey, executive director of community and philanthropy at St. Charles. “It is an excellent opportunity to honor someone who has enriched the field of medicine in Central Oregon.”

Dr. Helenka Marcinek, medical director of AirLink Critical Care Transport and Bend Fire Department, was recognized with last year’s award. 

The winner will be presented with the award at the Saints Gala on Nov. 2 and a $5,000 scholarship will be awarded in the physician’s name to a student who is pursuing education for a career in health care.

Physician nominations may be made by any individual. The deadline to submit nominations is Sept. 27.

For more details and to download an application, visit stcharlesfoundation.org.

About St. Charles Foundation 
As the philanthropic arm of St. Charles Health System, the Foundation works to support and improve health care in Central and Eastern Oregon. Private donations raised by the Foundation allow St. Charles to build new medical facilities, purchase state-of-the-art medical equipment, keep pace with the latest technological advances and deliver exceptional patient care in a healing environment. The Foundation does more than just raise money for bricks and mortar. The organization also raises money to support many programs that benefit low-income and uninsured patients.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Aug. 22, 2019

BEND, Ore. – For Alex Banayan, it’s simple: “When you change what you believe is possible, you change what becomes possible.”

In a special St. Charles Health System-sponsored event at Mount Bachelor Village on Friday, Sept. 20 at 6 p.m., the only bestselling business author under 30 in America will share how some of the world’s most successful people broke through and launched their careers.

His book, The Third Door: The Wild Quest to Uncover How the World’s Most Successful People Launched Their Careers, has been translated into more than a dozen languages. Over the course of his seven-year journey, Banayan interviewed the most innovative leaders of the past half-century, including Bill Gates, Lady Gaga, Larry King, Maya Angelou, Steve Wozniak, Jane Goodall, Jessica Alba, Quincy Jones and more.

The day before his freshman-year final exams, Banayan hacked The Price is Right, won a sailboat, sold it and used the money to fund his larger-than-life adventure to find out how some of the world’s most notable people achieved success.

Since then, Banayan has been named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list, Business Insider’s Most Powerful People Under 30, and been featured in major media, including The Washington Post, Fortune, CNBC, MSNBC, Fox News and NBC News.

An acclaimed keynote speaker, Banayan has presented the Third Door framework to business conferences and corporate leadership teams around the world, including Apple, Google, Nike, IBM, Snapchat, Salesforce and Disney.

Tickets for this exclusive speaking engagement are $13 and on sale now at http://bit.ly/AlexB-MtBach. A copy of The Third Door is included in the price of the ticket.

About St. Charles Health System
St. Charles Health System, Inc., headquartered in Bend, Ore., owns and operates St. Charles Bend, Madras, Prineville and Redmond. It also owns family care clinics in Bend, Madras, Prineville, Redmond, Sisters and La Pine. St. Charles is a private, not-for-profit Oregon corporation and is the largest employer in Central Oregon with more than 4,200 caregivers. In addition, there are more than 350 active medical staff members and nearly 200 visiting medical staff members who partner with the health system to provide a wide range of care and service to our communities.

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BEND, Ore. – St. Charles Cancer Center is teaming up with The Joy Team to host Chalk the Walks on Aug. 20 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. to help spread positive messages through sidewalk chalk art.

The event, which will take place near the cancer center entrance and in the Healing Garden at 2500 NE Neff Road in Bend, will also feature live entertainment by musician Shireen Amini and Hawaiian dancers, as well as snacks, a chalking contest and balloons.

Chalk the Walks is an annual international event that takes place with the sole purpose of infusing as many people as possible with some much-needed joy and inspiration. The event began in Vancouver, Wash., in 2011 and has spread to all 50 U.S. states and 11 other countries around the world.

“The words ‘you have cancer’ are life changing. Facing a cancer diagnosis and going through treatment can be physically, emotionally and financially draining,” said Wendy Rudy, survivorship and community education coordinator. “Both the cancer survivor and their family can feel afraid and alone. We are bringing Chalk the Walks back to St. Charles Cancer Center in order to bring joy, share love and offer hope to our courageous cancer fighters and their families.”

In addition to St. Charles Cancer Center in Bend, St. Charles Cancer Center in Redmond and Heart ‘n Home Hospice & Palliative Care in Bend and La Pine will also be hosting Chalk the Walk events Aug. 20 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

“The concept seems so simple, yet last year we saw first-hand the impact our community had when it came out and chalked positives messages of hope and inspiration around the cancer center healing garden,” Rudy said. “Not only did they bring smiles to everyone entering the cancer center, but also something positive changed inside them as well.”

For more information about Chalk the Walks, contact Wendy Rudy, survivorship and community education coordinator, at [email protected] or 541-706-2969.

About St. Charles Health System 
St. Charles Health System, Inc., headquartered in Bend, Ore., owns and operates St. Charles Bend, Madras, Prineville and Redmond. It also owns family care clinics in Bend, Madras, Prineville, Redmond and Sisters. St. Charles is a private, not-for-profit Oregon corporation and is the largest employer in Central Oregon with more than 4,200 caregivers. In addition, there are more than 350 active medical staff members and nearly 200 visiting medical staff members who partner with the health system to provide a wide range of care and service to our communities.

About The Joy Team 
Founded in February 2010, The Joy Team is a 501c3 corporation based in Vancouver, Wash., with the mission of building community by spreading joy, optimism and inspiration. Projects of the positive thought organization include putting up 1,469 positive messages (and counting) on billboards, delivering over 2,450 Happy Packets to the staff of organizations serving the community through The Junior Joy Team, giving over 4,400 jars of joy-wrapped peanut butter to hungry kids through the PB & JOY Project and the annual international Chalk the Walks event. Learn more at thejoyteam.org, like them on Facebook.com/TheJoyTeam or follow them on Twitter @TheJoyTeam or Instagram @the.joy.team.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 19, 2019

MADRAS, Ore. – St. Charles Family Care Madras is opening a tiny library next week with the hope it will play a big role in inspiring children to read.

In partnership with Little Free Library—a nonprofit organization dedicated to inspiring a love of reading, building community and sparking creativity by fostering neighborhood book exchanges around the world—the clinic is presenting the library to the community in a ribbon cutting ceremony near the main entrance of the St. Charles Madras hospital on July 24 at 10 a.m.

“We’re really trying to help children of all ages and backgrounds have access to age-appropriate books,” said Marcus Thompson, a community health educator at St. Charles Family Care Madras. “We thought building a Little Free Library and installing it right outside the clinic would be a fun and easy way to help our community connect and increase early literacy in our youth.”

Research shows that children growing up in homes without books are on average three years behind children in homes with lots of books, even when controlled for other key factors. Little Free Libraries, like the one opening at St. Charles Madras, play an essential role in providing access to books in areas where books may be scarce.

Funded by a St. Charles Foundation mini-grant, the Little Free Library will help augment efforts already underway to promote reading among children, including the Reach Out and Read program at St. Charles Family Care Madras. The library will be stocked from books donated by that program as well as from caregivers, community members and the Foundation.

About St. Charles Health System
St. Charles Health System, Inc., headquartered in Bend, Ore., owns and operates St. Charles Bend, Madras, Prineville and Redmond. It also owns family care clinics in Bend, Madras, Prineville, Redmond, Sisters and La Pine. St. Charles is a private, not-for-profit Oregon corporation and is the largest employer in Central Oregon with more than 4,200 caregivers. In addition, there are more than 350 active medical staff members and nearly 200 visiting medical staff members who partner with the health system to provide a wide range of care and service to our communities.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 17, 2019

SISTERS, Ore. – Starting Aug. 1, St. Charles Center for Women’s Health will see patients at the St. Charles Family Care clinic in Sisters.

Every Wednesday, a provider from the Center for Women’s Health office will be at the clinic to provide obstetric care, well-women exams, contraceptive management, menopause treatment and other services. The Center for Women’s Health has board-certified physicians, women’s health nurse practitioners and certified nurse midwives who collaboratively work together to meet patients’ needs.

Offering the Wednesday appointments at the clinic is part of St. Charles’ effort to make obstetric and gynecologic services more accessible to women of all ages in Sisters, Black Butte, Camp Sherman and throughout the region.

“Women may suffer from problems such as pelvic pain, irregular bleeding and bladder incontinence, but delay seeing a provider because they either feel this is ‘normal’ or they encounter barriers to accessing care,” said Tricia Clay, manager of clinic operations at St. Charles Center for Women’s Health. “As women age, it’s important they see a provider yearly for preventive exams and screenings, and to address concerns they have as they get older and approach menopause.”

Women seen in Sisters who need care beyond what can be provided at the clinic will be referred to the Center for Women’s Health in Redmond to see a board-certified OB-GYN. Any surgical procedures needed can be performed at St. Charles Redmond.

“We are so excited to expand our services to another location, making it more convenient for women to get access to the care they need,” said Dr. Beth Murrill, a board-certified OB-GYN. “We’re very much looking forward to connecting with and supporting the Sisters community.”

About St. Charles Health System
St. Charles Health System, Inc., headquartered in Bend, Ore., owns and operates St. Charles Bend, Madras, Prineville and Redmond. It also owns family care clinics in Bend, Madras, Prineville, Redmond, Sisters and La Pine. St. Charles is a private, not-for-profit Oregon corporation and is the largest employer in Central Oregon with more than 4,200 caregivers. In addition, there are more than 350 active medical staff members and nearly 200 visiting medical staff members who partner with the health system to provide a wide range of care and service to our communities.

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“One of my most important goals is comfort. The whole idea of this program is to educate people and help them modify the risk factors that got them into cardiac rehab in the first place. So how do we get them past that fear of starting over and feeling confident to go out and resume (living)? It’s about giving people good information about how to move forward, and this is one way we do that. It communicates comfort to patients in a somewhat stressful situation.”

- Amy, exercise specialist at St. Charles Bend, who maintains the new chalkboard wall near the entrance to Cardiopulmonary Rehab. Each week, Amy posts announcements, upcoming events, tips, suggested meals, an exercise of the week and more for patients’ perusal.

Our friends in Warm Springs have been dealing with a water crisis for the past month, due to loss of pressure in the distribution system following a water main break. Most residents have no access to running water and have been on a boil water notice since May 30.

Three times in the past couple of weeks, St. Charles Foundation has donated 2,000 one-gallon jugs of water to Warm Springs to help ease the burden, with caregivers from St. Charles Madras helping to make the deliveries. Health system officials are currently working with the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs to determine how St. Charles can provide meaningful assistance going forward.

St. Charles got involved after hearing of the problems from Shilo Tippett, a member of the Tribe who works as a clinical psychologist at St. Charles Family Care in Madras. Her initial suggestion was to provide water for the annual Pi-Ume-Sha health fair, but - thanks largely to the efforts of Carlos Salcedo, manager of community partnerships for St. Charles Foundation - that blossomed into 2,000 gallon jugs, according to Madras Family Care Clinic Operations Manager Randy Jasa.

“We learned about it on a Monday and we were able to meet that need by delivering a truckload of water by, I believe, Thursday,” Jasa said. “They told us at the time that they’d probably be through all that water by the middle of the afternoon.”

That revelation sent Jasa looking for more ways to help, and another truckload was delivered on June 17. A third was delivered on the morning of June 27.

For Jasa, responding to the crisis in Warm Springs is part of his job as a health care provider in Jefferson County, but it’s also simpler than that.

“The people of Warm Springs are our neighbors. Some of them are our patients, but all of them are our neighbors and we want to help our neighbors,” he said.

“It’s a small community and a small county, and too often we let 15 miles in between us seem like an eternity,” Jasa continued. “But they’re our friends and neighbors, and when somebody’s in trouble, everybody needs to step up and help out.”

Tippett echoed the sentiment that Madras and Warm Springs don’t “interface enough,” and said one silver lining of the water crisis is that it has brought the two communities together.

“The administrators and leaders in Warm Springs are working very hard to address the (issue) and are doing all they can to get water back to our people,” she said. “Many people are pitching in to help and that is a wonderful thing to see.”

Surgeons at St. Charles Redmond recently performed the first robotic surgery there—a ventral hernia repair with mesh—using a da Vinci Surgical System, which translates surgeons' hands into smaller, more precise movements.

Our surgeons love this technology because it not only increases their dexterity and meticulousness, but also it reduces the physical strain of performing surgery.

“I can’t turn my wrist 360 degrees, but with the robot I can twist the hand around to where I can reach into places that I would not be able to do (in open surgery) or laparoscopically,” said Dr. Ngocthuy Hughes, a general surgeon with St. Charles Surgical Specialists. “And also, it’s for the surgeons’ longevity. With laparoscopic surgery, sometimes getting to a certain angle or certain area of the body is a lot of work on the surgeon.”

For our patients, robotic surgery can mean a shorter hospital stay, less post-operative pain and a faster recovery time.

“Post-operative pain issues are significantly less,” said Dr. John Land, also a general surgeon with St. Charles Surgical Specialists. “I’ve decreased my narcotic prescription rate by 94 percent compared to when I used to do open (surgery).”

The surgeons said a common misconception that patients have is the robot performs procedures all on its own.

“When you talk to the patient, you really stress—and I guess assure them—you’re the surgeon, not the robot,” Hughes said. “A lot of time they get (the idea that) the robot is going to operate on me. And I have to explain to them, ‘No, it’s me operating the robot. The robot is my new tool versus the laparoscope.’ I tell them that the robot allows me to do things that I can’t do with my hands.”

The da Vinci Surgical System has been used successfully in hundreds of thousands of minimally invasive procedures over the past decade. St. Charles is excited to grow its robotics program to include the Redmond hospital.

Our world is changing at an incredible pace, and it’s no different in health care.

Across St. Charles Health System, we’re committed to leading our industry on several fronts. We’re using powerful technology and new techniques to improve the way we treat patients, while at the same time partnering with other organizations on training and education to ensure Central Oregonians receive uniformly excellent care.

We’ve implemented a number of initiatives to ensure the LGBTQ community feels comfortable coming to a St. Charles facility, and we’re helping respond to the water crisis in Warm Springs – not because we’re a health care provider, but because it’s the right thing to do for our friends and neighbors.

Here are a few other things worth knowing about St. Charles:

• Our hospitals and the jobs they create – both directly and indirectly – play a vital role in the region’s economic wellness.
• Last spring, we welcomed our first child life specialist, whose role is to help children cope with the challenges of their care.
• A team of surgeons at St. Charles Bend used a novel procedure to save the life of a 79-year-old patient who couldn’t tolerate a more conventional approach.
• St. Charles Redmond received a grade of “A” for patient safety from a national nonprofit group committed to improving health care quality and safety.

At St. Charles, we know that if we aren’t relentlessly focused on forward-thinking, innovative pathways of care, then we’re not doing our part to make Central Oregon America’s healthiest community. That’s our vision, and it stands at the heart of everything we do.

Joe Sluka
President and CEO
St. Charles Health System

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 25, 2019

BEND, Ore. – St. Charles recognizes nurses at its four hospitals with The DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurses ®

St. Charles Health System nurses Loni Verzuh, Cindy Norgaard, Heather Crnich and Maria Gattey have been honored with The DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurses ®, recognizing the extraordinary, compassionate nursing care they provide patients and families every day. 

Nominated by patients, families and colleagues, the award recipients were chosen by a committee at St. Charles.

The nurses—which represent all four St. Charles hospitals in Bend, Redmond, Madras and Prineville—were recognized with a ceremony on their respective units and presented with a certificate, a pin and a "healer's touch" sculpture by their hospital’s chief nursing officer. The DAISY honorees will also receive ongoing benefits, such as special rates for tuition and ANCC certification. 

"Our nurses are exceptional and deserve to be formally recognized for their dedication, spirit and the quality of care they provide in the community," said St. Charles Health System’s Chief Nursing Officer Pam Steinke. "We are excited to celebrate all the stories of compassionate care we hear every day."

The DAISY Foundation is a not-for-profit organization that was established in memory of J. Patrick Barnes by members of his family. Patrick died at the age of 33 in late 1999 from complications of Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP), a little known but not uncommon auto-immune disease. (DAISY is an acronym for Diseases Attacking the Immune System.)  The care Patrick and his family received from nurses while he was ill inspired this unique means of thanking nurses for making a profound difference in the lives of their patients and patient families.

"When Patrick was critically ill, our family experienced first-hand the remarkable skill and care nurses provide patients every day and night,” said Bonnie Barnes, FAAN, president and co-founder of The DAISY Foundation. “Yet these unsung heroes are seldom recognized for the super-human, extraordinary, compassionate work they do. The kind of work the nurses at St. Charles are called on to do every day epitomizes the purpose of The DAISY Award.”

This is one initiative of The DAISY Foundation to express gratitude to the nursing profession.  Additionally, DAISY offers J. Patrick Barnes Grants for Nursing Research and Evidence-Based Practice Projects, The DAISY Faculty Award to honor inspiring faculty members in schools and colleges of nursing and The DAISY in Training Award for nursing students. More information is available at http://DAISYfoundation.org.

About St. Charles Health System
St. Charles Health System, Inc., headquartered in Bend, Ore., owns and operates St. Charles Bend, Madras, Prineville and Redmond. It also owns family care clinics in Bend, Madras, Prineville, Redmond, Sisters and La Pine. St. Charles is a private, not-for-profit Oregon corporation and is the largest employer in Central Oregon with more than 4,200 caregivers. In addition, there are more than 350 active medical staff members and nearly 200 visiting medical staff members who partner with the health system to provide a wide range of care and service to our communities.

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